PaltalkScene now gives you the ability to create your own chat rooms and talk as well as text chat about whatever piques your interest, including exclusive content.

Exclusive online content is nothing new, but PalTalkScene gives you a forum to conduct real-time voice and chat interaction with whatever all-singing, all-dancing content has attracted your attention. How it works is so simple that users can create their own chat rooms, a great way to talk to friends or collaborate over long distances. Let's take a look:

Once you log in, click on Browse All Rooms. A new window will open up with a list of all PaltalkScene chat rooms. On the left side are categories, ranging from geographically-specific chats to more generalized topics like Arts and Entertainment and PaltalkScene's new Screening Rooms, which feature exclusive content. Rooms labeled in green have a G rating, which means that the dialogue should be appropriate for all. An "R" rating in red indicates that the discussion is a lot more salacious, and probably filled with four-letter unfriendlies.

Color-coding chat rooms makes it easier to find the one you want.
(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

Double-click on a room to get access. The top nav bar shows you any video cams you're connected to, as well as showing you what your cam is seeing. When your cam is active, there is a selection of overlays you can choose from to indicate whatever emotion it is that a cartoon cat staring at your face conveys.

Below the My Cam box is a video screen that shows you whatever is currently playing. So, in the BlipTV screening room, you can talk with other participants about what you're watching either with text chat or voice chat. The voice chat, in case you were wondering, seems to have a feature that prevents people from talking over each other: only one nattering nabob of negativity can be heard at
a time.

A PaltalkScene chat room incorporates video at the top, text chat in the middle, and voice chat at the bottom of the panel.
(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

Talking does require active input from the user, either by using the mouse to hit the "Push to Talk" button or holding down your CTRL key while speaking into your mic. The whole experience is a bit like living an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, so be sure to mute your volume if you're actually interested in the content of the video you're watching.

The other exceptional feature in PaltalkScene is that it has streamlined the chat room creation process, making it easy for anyone to create a forum that suits the needs of their group. As with much on the Web these days, there's a free version and two levels of paid rooms that are geared toward people who want to conduct business in a room or want to make the room their business. Click on Actions, then Create a Chat Room to open a Web page with instructions for naming and registering the room. From there, send out your invites and you're good to go.

Users can create a chat room from within the main chat panel.
(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

PaltalkScene brings live commentary to the chat room, and by melding it with open-ended user-based opportunities for growth, this is one scene that doesn't look like it's going to die any time soon.